


Stay? (Always)

by psyraah



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-30 04:59:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8519434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psyraah/pseuds/psyraah
Summary: "Remember me?" he wonders, and his breath catches in his throat when Keith sends that beautiful smile his way.“Always,” Keith says, and starts their lives together.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pastelstarsandacid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastelstarsandacid/gifts).



> This is actually one of the best things I've written. Please enjoy.

Their first meeting is fortuitous, simply a random pairing for some group activity. Shiro knows he has a reputation, a little bit of fame. Yet the second time he runs into Keith—while he’s doing training exercises—he still has to ask.

“Remember me?” he wonders, and his breath catches in his throat when Keith sends that beautiful smile his way.

“Always,” Keith says, and starts their lives together.

* * *

His breath is short— _time_ is short, in its inexorable march towards The Day, and the daylight. Keith sits on his bed, head bowed, shoulders hunched, as though physically shrinking himself could give a smaller target for the hurt that he’s feeling. Shiro wants to tell him to stand strong, to never give up his fight and his fire.

Except Shiro can’t. Shiro is leaving. Shiro is the reason for the disappointment, and the loss.

All he can do is sit with him, their legs pressed together, his arm tentatively looped around slim shoulders. All they can do is wait as time moves. All they can do is breathe together, and be together.

“Promise…” Keith says eventually, the words whispered and broken. Choked as though he cannot draw breath, though Shiro knows—as fact—that the air pressure hasn’t changed, that this is still Earth, where the air is free and flowing. But Keith still struggles as though he’s a thousand light years away, where the air isn’t air, and is instead chill and stale.

“Come back to me?” he manages.

Shiro can’t deny him.

“Always,” he whispers, and draws him ever closer.

* * *

The desert is cold. There is nothing here but broken wishes and impossible dreams.

“Come back to me,” Keith pleads into the dark. He cannot breathe.

The cell is cold. There is nothing here but darkness and horror, and the fading memory of a radiant smile and a promise he’s starting to believe he cannot keep.

“Always,” Shiro reminds himself, and the aches lessen.

* * *

The Castle is big, yet somehow the two find themselves with each other. Every time, drawn together as though to somehow make up for the lost time.

Frustratingly, it takes fights and misunderstandings and the spectre of death to let them come together. But when they do, it’s honest, it’s raw, and it’s all they’d ever wanted.

“Be with me,” Shiro asks. Though they are far from Earth, Keith steals his breath and makes it easier to breathe all at once, when he smiles with his heart, and the life lights up his eyes.

“Always,” he says, and leans further into Shiro’s touch.

* * *

The apartment is quiet when the next promise is made. Quiet, except for the humming of everything that breathes of life—the low tones of the refrigerator, the muted sounds of cars passing by.

It’s here—in their kitchen, in their home, in their lives—that Keith asks.

Candles he’d placed down hours ago drip wax onto the colourful dishes on which they stand, flickering as they light up the tan of Shiro’s skin and the beauty of the universes in his eyes. The light sparks and shines off the ring that Keith presents, and glances off the hope of happiness that lives in both their eyes.

“Stay with me?” Keith asks, as easy as drawing your breath in space.

There was never any other answer than what Shiro gives him: to lean forward, press their foreheads together, and lay his own hand over Keith’s.

The metal is cool between their fingers.

“Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Can be reblogged on tumblr if you so feel like it!](http://psytrron.tumblr.com/post/152992314004/their-first-meeting-is-fortuitousa-random-pairing)


End file.
